Hi there! 👋

Today I'm sharing a note on how you can optimize breadcrumbs for SEO.

Now, for the last week's news, Google is having some issues with displaying the web stories.

If you get regular traffic from web stories, then you may see a drop — but Danny Sullivan said on Twitter that they're aware of the issue, and this is not any permanent change.

Also, about the new Google product reviews update, John Mueller said that now it will be hard for user-generated content on product reviews to rank in the search.

Google's new algorithm aims to rank product reviews written by experts only, people who really do a great job reviewing the product.

Now, let's get to this week's SEO tip... 💥

Breadcrumbs are secondary navigation that allows users to track their path to your homepage from the page they're currently viewing.

They not only help people easily navigate a website, they also help Google better understand how a website is structured.

Different types of breadcrumbs are: hierarchy-based (most commonly used), attribute-based (used by eCommerce sites), and history-based (similar to a browser history).

Google now displays breadcrumbs in both mobile and desktop search results, so it's recommended to use keyword-rich breadcrumbs as they can positively influence your click-through rate (CTR).

Now Google takes breadcrumbs from multiple places like your page URL, schema markup, and your actual breadcrumbs on the page.

So to make sure Google is displaying the correct breadcrumbs, use them actually on your page with links and implement Schema markup as well.

If you're on WordPress, you can use Yoast or RankMath plugin to add breadcrumbs to all the pages.

Finally, it's always a good idea to start the breadcrumbs with the homepage, use a slightly small text size, and don't link the last item.

You can refer to Google's documentation on breadcrumbs to learn more about the schema implementation.

• It has been a few days since Google began rolling out the new Google Products Reviews Update, and those hit by this update are showing that this update can be as big as a core update if impacted.
• This seems to have done what Google said it would and shake up the product reviews category, and yes, it did seem to have a big impact on affiliate websites with a lot of product reviews.

• Looks like Google is testing a new knowledge panel on desktop SERPs based on the current mobile elements.
• When any filter is clicked, it simply moves the content up instead of scrolling the page.

• We know that Google uses engagement signals to rank web pages, but nobody knows the exact engagement signals.
• Based on the available info (like patents), the Google engagement signals can be summarized into 3 principles — First, Long and Last.
• These engagement signals for SEO are: Be the first click, Earn long clicks, and Be the last click.

• With SEO split-testing, you can A/B test elements like keywords in the page's meta titles and descriptions, placement of heading tags, and more — without waiting weeks for search algorithms to feedback the results.
• SEO A/B testing takes three simple steps:
  1. Divide a type of templatized page (like a blog post) into two groups: Control and Variant.
  2. Make the changes to the Variant group.
  3. Monitor the organic traffic difference between the two groups.
• Finally, a few ideas to try SEO A/B testing are: meta titles, heading tags, image alt text, internal links, schema markup, and link anchor text.

• Google’s latest video in the Lightning Talks series presents data on the state of SEO in 2020 compared to 2019.
• Aleyda Solis (SEO consultant) shared the main learnings from the SEO chapter of the 2020 Web Almanac (a comprehensive report on the state of the web).
• In the SEO Chapter of the Web 2020 Almanac, you will find many important SEO factors on crawlability, indexability, content trends, structured data, and data related to Google’s Page Experience Update.

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Until next week! :)

Saksham

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